Writing Ecologies: Notes For Nothing in the Near Future

How can utopia, revolution, and enlightenment be retheorized and reactivated in the present historical moment? Instead of capitalist modes of management and techno-fix, can we imagine alternative worlds that are more politically radical, and more personally and ecologically nourishing?

Bouncing off of his most recent book, Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism (2015), Professor Cazdyn’s talk will revisit the three categories (crisis, the chronic, enlightenment) in his past work. He will also present one category (disclosure) from his present work and propose a fifth category (nothing), while rethinking them as ecological concepts. 

Eric Cazdyn is Distinguished Professor of Aesthetics and Politics at the University of Toronto. Cazdyn’s newest book, Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism (with Marcus Boon and Timothy Morton, University of Chicago Press, 2015), is an attempt to reclaim for our present moment three desires that are regularly laughed out of polite conversation: “Enlightenment”, “Cure”, and “Revolution”. Cazdyn is also a filmmaker and is currently experimenting with the “live-essay film” in a long-term project called “The Blindspot Variations.” 

Writing Ecologies: Environmental Humanities and East Asia is a new monthly Speaker Series, which brings together recent scholarship experimenting with ecocritical and greater-than-human approaches in the context of East Asia.

'Writing ecologies' entails the practice of pushing the edges of conventional anthropocentric narratives in history, literary studies, anthropology and beyond. Seeking to respond to the urgency of addressing environmental questions in the humanities and social sciences, we are excited to present a great lineup of speakers and embark on a journey to trace the glimmers of entanglements between humans, land, water, animals, plants, fungi, and much more.

With situated research and stories in East Asia, this series foregrounds critical interventions that advance our understanding of the global environmental crisis and enrich our imagination of a more habitable future.

Writing Ecologies: Environmental Humanities and East Asia is organized by Qieyi Liu and MengRan Xu. PhD Candidates in the Department of East Asian Studies